Master ClassThe Wedding Day, Part I

Small weddings are becoming
very popular, perhaps because couples are thinking ahead and want to
avoid many of the difficulties and costs associated with large weddings.
Be that as it may, photographers still have the opportunity to take
lots and lots of pictures and still put together beautiful and fun wedding
albums for the bride and groom€even when the wedding is as small as
this one was--only four people in total!

This was brought to my attention
recently when I assisted Joan Burton in photographing the wedding of
a couple at the Beaches Resort, Turks and Caicos islands in the Caribbean.
We both were shooting with digital Canon D30 cameras. I had been invited
there to teach their photographers by Andy Mann, owner of Tropical Imaging.
Andy's an extremely enterprising entrepreneur who's unquestionably the
leader in the entire Caribbean for the most contemporary photography
being produced there today.

Both Joan and I were using
the simplest of equipment. There were no posing stools, portrait lighting
equipment, backgrounds, or off-camera flashes to be had. (You can bet
that I changed that!) The backgrounds, of course, were no problem. Everywhere
you turn at that resort you can find a new background.

So, here's a part of the
wedding coverage that Joan and I did together. Everyone was relaxed,
had a great time, and, needless to say, loved the resulting photographs.

Let's start with this picture
of the two wedding rings resting on top of the bride's bouquet. I made
it with the macro setting of my Canon 28-135mm zoom lens. I just placed
the flowers down and carefully nestled the rings among them. I let the
camera select its own exposure. Nothing to it.

The next picture, of course,
wasn't made early in the wedding day, but it sort of beautifully introduces
the whole series of photographs, so I placed it up-front in their album.
Although it appears as if they're standing high on a mountain top, there
are really no high elevations on the island. They're standing on a small
knoll by the beach and I'm crouching down low to place them against the
clear sky.

Notice that I kept her body
at a 45 angle to the camera, joining the two of them together with their
arms around each other. Both the angle of her body and their arms add
support to their heads. I usually try to keep both bodies at that 45
angle, but with his having to support her as he is, he would have been
unable to keep that position. Had I let both of them turn so that we were
looking merely at the sides of both bodies, the picture would not looked
nearly as good.

I used a huge wind machine
to blow out her gown. (Yeah, sure!) The exposure was set for bright sun
and I used a strong flash on-camera to open up the shadow side of their
faces.

This next photograph is also
out of the sequence in which I took the pictures, but it fits well into
the story-telling aspect of the picture coverage at this point. The picture
was actually made with her standing on the outside edge of a porch covering.
I turned her face slightly away from directly out toward the light, so
that I could create the shadows on the near side of her face.

She, of course, is in a Basic
Pose, her head flowing in the same direction as her body. She's tipping
her head toward her low shoulder, while her left hand is holding the flowers
up to her face. Normally, I would show a little bit more of the bouquet,
but for practical purposes I cropped all the photographs into 8x10 proportions,
since that is what most people have in their albums and that is what most
photographers are concerned about seeing.

In cropping the image I kept
her eyes about a third of the way down from the top of the picture. I
also cropped the composition in the viewfinder to keep a little more space
in front of her in the direction toward which she is looking.

Reflect On The Possibility
Of Mirror Pictures
I knew that there were going to be just a very few people for this wedding,
so I didn't want to miss any opportunity to use some of the tried-and-true
pictures that have been so successful for me down through my entire professional
career.

One of these scenarios has
been pictures in the mirror. As a matter of fact, I found that the more
close-ups like these that I took, the more pictures were ordered by both
the wedding couple and their parents. What I eventually realized was that
these photographs were the beginning of my creating portraits of the parents,
grandparents, brothers, and sisters in addition to just the bride and
groom.

So, I began with pictures of the
bride and groom in the mirror. I did them individually and then created
still more by placing one or the other in the background. Using a digital
camera allowed me to see what the effect was immediately€and I loved it.
What I didn't notice until later was the fact that the mirror I was using
had bevels on the edges that caused a slight flare on the edge in some of
the pictures. Still, it didn't bother me or the couple enough to eliminate
these photographs from their selection.

What I do for my mirror shots
is to position the subject so close to the mirror that when I lean the
person in toward the mirror the reflected image and the real person are
both almost equidistant from my camera. Thus, they are both in focus.
I just have to be careful not to put the profile of the subject against
the edge of the frame and have that be a distraction.

I turn my flash slightly in
toward the mirror, so that the light basically bounces into the mirror
and from the mirror back at the subject. The direct light from my flash
acts as the fill light. Thus, somewhat of a portrait lighting develops
on my subjects and there are no blown-out, overexposed areas on their
faces.

In this picture the groom is
actually a few feet behind the bride, yet the light bounces out from the
mirror sufficiently enough to illuminate him, too.

For the next picture I positioned
the groom behind the bride and said to him, "Touch your lips to her cheek."
You don't really see him much on the right, but you certainly see him
and feel his presence in the mirror image of the two of them. Just imagine,
now, how many scenarios one can create from this beginning.

You don't have to be afraid
of the flash reflecting in the mirror as long as you position yourself
so that you can't see yourself in the mirror.

Of course, the same thing can
be done in reverse, can't it?

Or, you can simply change the
people in the picture and repeat a similar situation. The groom and his
mother, for instance, is a winner with her kissing her "little baby."

Keep Your Mind Open For
New Ideas
Of course, the bride and groom both decided that they would see each other
for pictures before the ceremony. They had never considered doing this
or not doing this before I spoke with them the day before their wedding
was to take place. When I explained to them how much fun it could be being
together throughout the entire wedding day, they both agreed to do it--with
the exception of showing each other their wedding rings.

During a pause in the sequence
of the picture taking I watched the bride and groom secretly show his
mother the other's wedding ring. Since I had never photographed anything
like this before, it seemed a natural to position each of them with their
backs turned toward each other, while they each showed the rings to his
mother. Cute shots. They both needed to be in the wedding album.

Just the day before I had shown
Andy's photographers how I do most of my outdoor portraiture under cover,
so that I could create directional light and shadows for better portraiture.
So, I took my four subjects, the bride and groom, his mother and her significant
other outside. Just under cover of the overhead roof I was able to photograph
them both with the groom behind the bride's profile.

To better understand exactly
how it all happened, look at this:
Notice that both faces are turned toward the light, but not directly into
the light. Thus, I was able to achieve fairly good lighting on her profile
and good split-lighting on the groom's face. In most copies of this picture
that I see photographers tend to turn the groom's face away from the light.
This just draws attention to the back of his head, while his face goes
into shadow.

What makes this picture most
effective is that I always raise or lower one or the other's face, placing
his lips at the same level as hers. Many people don't notice that at first,
until I point it out to them. When his head is tilted outward slightly
(as it is in this picture) their two heads almost form the shape of a
heart. That's another thing that I point out to the couple as I'm taking
their picture. Of course, they haven't the faintest idea of what I'm talking
about--until they see the picture. Then, they flip out over that and must
have that picture in their album.

Believe it or not, the original
inspiration for my taking that picture was my remembering a photograph
that Karsh had made a long time ago of John and Jackie Kennedy. Of course,
now everyone does pictures like this!

Coming next month--"The Wedding
Day Part II.

To see more great images like
these, visit my web site at: www.zuga.net.